The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2015, and October 31, 2016 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2016 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on November 3, 2016, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

This
debut picture book for a general audience deploys text and drawings to showcase
a series of musing, motivational messages.

At
the outset, author marci notes that
her stories “are for all audiences” and that her readers “have a front row seat
to interpret them and make them your own.” The following “stories” typically
consist of only a few sentences, always contained on a single page with
black-and-white graphic illustrations. For example, the phrase “sometimes all
we need is a good foundation” is accompanied by an image of some Greek columns.
Some pages are more text-heavy than others, including the opening story, a poem that tees up the theme of this collection: “Every star a wish /
every day a hope / every cloud a dream / every life a love / every door a
window / every friend a smile / every laugh a light / every scraps of life.”
The final page is a reprint of the Emily Dickinson poem “ ‘Hope’ is the thing
with feathers –,” illustrated with a starry-night border and floating feathers.
In between, the author touches on a variety of other topics, including the
value of friendship and personal resilience; for instance, one page offers the sentence
“as she turned the pages, things just looked brighter and brighter” and an
illustration of a page of a dark night sky turning into one of a sun. This
debut has plenty of gentle charm and will certainly be accessible to a wide
audience, as marci apparently intended. More background about the author and
illustrator would have been a welcome addition, however. The stories also
sometimes unfortunately border on being a bit too cutesy, as in the use of lots
of lowercase (even for the author’s own name). Overall, though, this book is a
harmless enough contribution to its category.

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